World urges Israel not to send ground troops into Gaza

Palestinians desperate to flee Gaza besieged the only border crossing into Egypt on Friday. But Egypt was admitting only the badly wounded and Egyptian passport-holders.
Photo: Reuters

by
Jonathan Ferziger | Fadwa Hodali

World leaders are trying to steer Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu
away from sending ground forces into the Gaza Strip, and Palestinian President
Mahmoud Abbas
demanded that Hamas stop its rocket attacks.

Mr Netanyahu was vague on Friday about Israel’s plans to intensify its military campaign against the Islamist movement that controls Gaza, saying on television that a “difficult, complex" battle lies ahead, without elaborating. The Palestinian territory is surrounded by land, air and sea forces awaiting Mr Netanyahu’s word to move in.

United States President
Barack Obama
spoke by phone with Mr Netanyahu and offered to “facilitate a cessation of hostilities", according to a White House statement. United Nations Secretary-General
Ban Ki-moon
told the Security Council the threat of a ground offensive is “still palpable – and preventable only if Hamas stops rocket-firing".

Diplomatic efforts abounded as the Palestinian death toll from three days of Israeli air strikes in Hamas-controlled Gaza reached 90. Mr Abbas delivered his appeal to end the bloodshed just hours after Israel disclosed it is mobilising 20,000 soldiers for a possible ground invasion.

The public nature of Mr Abbas’s remarks may further strain his political alliance with Hamas. Mr Abbas has already denounced the abduction of three Israeli teenagers, whose killing Israel has blamed on the militant group, which neither confirms nor denies involvement.

“What are you trying to achieve by sending rockets?" Mr Abbas asked on Palestine TV, without explicitly naming Hamas, which recently lent its backing to his government after a seven-year rift. “We prefer to fight with wisdom and politics."

Rockets deeper into Israel than before

Israeli aircraft stepped up weeks of strikes on the territory on July 8 after the rocket fire grew heavier, reaching farther into Israel than ever before. Israel’s military campaign is the third in less than six years.

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Israel’s benchmark TA-25 index fell 0.3 per cent at the close in Tel Aviv on Thursday. The shekel was little changed at 3.4305 to the US dollar.

Mr Abbas said Egyptian efforts to reach a truce had failed, and that he was in contact with Turkish Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan
in an attempt to end the violence. Mr Abbas patched up his breach with Hamas after negotiations with Israel collapsed. The Hamas-backed Palestinian government formed on June 2 has been beset by disputes over finances, with Mr Abbas declining to pick up the payroll for 58,000 employees of the former Hamas government in Gaza for fear the terrorist taint would scare off donors. The United States and European Union, like Israel, consider Hamas a terrorist organisation.

Israel’s Minister of Intelligence and Strategic Affairs, Yuval Steinitz, has signalled the government is not willing to return to the Egyptian-brokered truce that ended fighting in 2012, and has the broader aim of crushing Hamas’s military infrastructure.

He told Israel Radio on Wednesday that the time for a ground operation “may be nearing".

At least 90 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have been killed since Israel ramped up its offensive, the Gaza Health Ministry says. At least 10 were children, according to the United Nations Relief Works Agency. In Israel, houses and cars have been hit by rocket fire, but no Israelis have been killed.

Israel has struck more than 650 targets in Gaza, including tunnels militants dug under the border with Israel, their homes, rocket launchers, command centres and training camps, the army said.

US Secretary of State
John Kerry
, who led the peace talks between Israel and Mr Abbas’s Palestinian Authority that broke down in April, said the US is trying to see if it’s possible to end the “very, very dangerous" violence.